The Telegraph
Cruz is terrifically good value here - the film is essentially hers, and she navigates the plot's numerous emotional peaks and chasms like a seasoned Sherpa.
Full review
Parallel Mothers
Penélope Cruz and Milena Smit (Cross the Line) star in this chance encounter drama from Oscar-winning filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar (The Skin I Live In) about two single women of different ages about to give birth at the same time, forming a lingering bond.
Two women, Janis (Cruz) and Ana (Smit), coincide in a hospital room where they are going to give birth. Both are single and became pregnant by accident. Janis, middle-aged, doesn’t regret it and she is exultant. The other, Ana, an adolescent, is scared, repentant and traumatised. Janis tries to encourage her while they move like sleepwalkers along the hospital corridors. The few words they exchange in these hours will create a very close link between the two, which by chance develops and complicates, and changes their lives in a decisive way.
Less2022Rating: M, Sex scenes123 minsSpainEl Deseo
DramaFestival & Independent
Parallel Mothers | Reviews
Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar continues a rich body of work exploring feminine history and desire, never shying from the raw, real, fragile essentials of existence.
96%216 reviewsRotten Tomatoes® Score
All reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
The Guardian
A film that's bent by hardship and pierced by tragedy but it finally bows out with a message of hope.
Full review
Hollywood Reporter
A ravishingly crafted work that again illustrates with ineffable beauty that no one uses the expressive power of color and design quite like Almodóvar.
Full review
Little White Lies
Most will require a flat-bed truck stacked with Kleenex to make it through this one without the irritant of tear-based obfuscation.
Full review
IndieWire
Offers many delights, one of which is that it ushers Almodóvar fans back to his comfortingly familiar milieu.
Full review
The Times
From opening frame to closing titles, this is resoundingly, exquisitely, the Penélope Cruz show. But with a lesson in Spanish history.
Full review
Slash Film
A rare example of a director who can play the hits while still making the tune sound new.
Full review
Entertainment Weekly
Feels almost like stepping back into a long conversation with an old friend; a dialogue of decades, told two hours at a time.
Full review
Slant Magazine
A ghost story as well as a story of transference, which Pedro Almodóvar understands to be one in the same.
Full review
Paste
A deeply political example of what is lost when we have forgotten-and what is achieved when we fight to remember.
Full review
Parallel Mothers | Release Details
Parallel Mothers is available to stream in New Zealand now on Google Play and Apple TV and Neon Rentals and Academy On Demand and AroVision.